Building Institutional Capacity

Introduction

 In 2009 and 2010, Consortium member agencies undertook Conflict Sensitivity Capacity Self-Assessments. The aim of these self-assessments was to help member agencies identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and blockages in terms of each agency’s capacity for conflict sensitivity. 

A variety of tools were utilized for the self-assessment – each agency and country started with a common framework/tool (developed by the consortium in early 2009) and adapted this tool according to individual agency or country need. Some agencies followed the original tool, some refined the tool into a questionnaire, and others simplified the original tool into more flexible and broader lines of inquiry.

Likewise, a variety of methodologies were followed – In the UK, where the assessment was conducted first, agencies were paired up, and provided each other with peer support for the actual self-assessment. In other countries consultants supported and helped facilitate the process. The self-assessment included use of questionnaires, focus group discussions, targeted interviews, as well as review of relevant agency documents.

Despite following different tools and methodologies, each agency ensured that their self-assessment covered a wide range of issues and stretched across a broad cross-section of the organisation, encompassing departments beyond those actually implementing programming. 

The following are nine common sectors:
- Coordination and programme support
- Policies, strategies & risk management
- Design, monitoring & evaluation
- Communication, documentation and information technology (IT)
- Human Resource
- Administration, finance & Audit
- Grants, fundraising & sponsorships
- Operations & partnerships

Each agency documented both the process of their self-assessment, and their key findings (documents that are available internally within the consortium). The next step was to share self-assessment findings across each country (Kenya, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, UK). Each country held a review meeting to share findings across agencies to discuss next steps and to define change objectives. In the UK this workshop took place in July 2009, and in Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and Kenya it was held between August 2009 and early 2010. Each country discussed and developed consolidated potential change objectives, which were taken back to each individual agency for further refinement. By the end of the second year of the consortium (March 2010), each consortium agency had developed (and secured agency internal buy-in) to a list of priority change objectives for working towards over the remaining two years of the consortium project.